Mercedes-Benz F-Cell: Fire Protection Goes Smokeless

Share

Mercedes-Benz F-Cell: Fire Protection Goes Smokeless

There's something so wrong about a fire engine spewing soot as it screams past. Now DaimlerChrysler gives a glimpse of the zero-emissions future of firefighting with its Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, the first fuel cell–powered fire response vehicle. The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District — part-time home to fuel-cell enthusiast and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger — plans to use it as a supervisor's vehicle, filling up every hundred miles or so at the California Fuel Cell Partnership's BP Energy hydrogen refueling station.

The fuel cell system of the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell is housed entirely in the floor of the vehicle, leaving passenger and cargo spaces clear. With an 88 hp (65 kW) electric motor and a Ballard Power Systems fuel cell stack, it can go from 0 to 60 in 16 seconds and has a top speed of 85 mph — no match for a Lamborghini, but certainly enough to justify a siren.

The first fuel cell-powered police car, currently in the care of the Wayne State University Police Department in Michigan, was also built by DaimlerChrysler.

For the record, DaimlerChrysler's fuel cell vehicle fleet includes several research vehicles, some medium-duty fuel cell Dodge Sprinter vans, and more than 35 Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel cell buses, which operate in Europe, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and Singapore. DaimlerChrysler claims the world's largest fuel cell fleet, with 32 vehicles in the hands of U.S. customers and more than 100 worldwide.